A while back, I was approached by the awesome people at The Backroom Podcast about writing a column for their site with somewhat of a “blank check” offer; they were willing, within reason, to let me talk about whatever I thought might be interesting to comics oriented folk. Since I have been a big fan of their Podcast for a while now, I was extremely interested in the prospect.

“What will you write about,” I was asked.

Well, I wanted to talk about something practical. Obviously, it would have to be something comic related as well… and I wanted it to focus on something I actually knew well. What I settled on as my Thesis going forward is to answer the one question that I am asked the most about comics from the only angle I can speak on definitively.

That Thesis is: How to Fail at Independent Comics.

At this point, if you are still reading at all, you are probably wondering what kind of nut would ask how they can Fail at anything. Success, after all, is the American Dream, is it not? And who wants to put all their energy and effort into something predestined to blow up like the Hindenburg?

Truth is- nobody has ever asked me how to fail in comics. What they do, however, is ask me how they can duplicate what Daniel Bradford and I did with Robot 13. They see all the press and reviews and some perceived level of “Success,” they ask me, “How did you DO it?”

When I start spouting obscenities at them, however, using phrases such as “Hard Work,” or “Professional Quality,” or worse, I almost always get dejected looks and a half hearted “Thank You” as they run screaming to wash out their ears with a bar of soap…

The funny thing is- I am confident that even if someone were to heed any and all advice I could give them on Indy Comics success, that there would be no better than a 50/50 chance of them achieving success themselves. Most of what has “Worked” so far in the case of Robot 13 probably couldn’t be duplicated even if we tried. Furthermore, every positive thing that has happened to us in the course of the past year has been offset by dozens of little problems, mistakes and failures. So far, none of those failures has been compounded by repetition but there have been many lessons learned none the less.

While I can’t give you a formula for success in Indy Comics, however, I can tell you some sure fire blueprints to complete Failure! In fact- I can tell you ways to make your Failures SO Epic that you will need years of therapy to untangle the mess.

Why, you may ask, would you WANT suck knowledge?

I would recommend knowing how to Fail at Indy Comics for 2 main reasons. First of all, by knowing some of the bigger mistakes that can be made, you might just avoid a few things that many of us had to learn the hard way. Believe me- there are a few dozen things about Self Publishing and making comics in general that I wish I knew before I started.

And that thought brings us to the second reason- some sure-fire failures in Indy Comics almost fly in the face of “Common Sense.” Some of the most “Logical” things that Daniel and I have done have actually turned out worse in the than things we stumbled on by complete accident. People sometimes say, “Why did you do X when everyone else is doing Y?”

The answer has almost always some variation of, “Because we tried Y, but that didn’t work…”

In any case, I hope you join me as I bring some insight into making comics and maybe a little of rain to the parade as well…

Thomas Hall

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